tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17695314090753971712024-03-14T09:09:21.622-04:00BQE Keeperan apprentice's adventures in Brooklyn beekeepingMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-36420395644638657942010-08-13T15:27:00.002-04:002010-08-13T15:34:54.516-04:00Tardy UpdateHow swiftly time passes! For reasons of epic proportions, I did not end up with a hive last year. Since then, however, bee keeping has become legal in the City of New York, and now a thousand hives are blooming here. I do hope to keep hives, or have the hives keep me, someday in the future. Meanwhile, you can now generally find me blogging about natural history at Backyard and Beyond.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-2752799053955862382009-06-19T07:18:00.004-04:002009-06-19T07:26:44.024-04:00Brooklyn Beekeeper BustedA Brooklyn beekeeper has been busted for backyard beekeeping. She's received a Notice of Violation from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and will have a hearing on Tuesday, June 23rd. This is in the midst of Pollinator Week, which runs from June 22 to June 28. There will be a rally in support of this beekeeper at City Hall at 12:30 Tuesday. Other things you can do are listed Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-86498353248828204512009-05-26T15:15:00.000-04:002009-05-26T15:16:23.730-04:00BumbleMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-10415105416955214432009-05-03T13:44:00.002-04:002009-05-03T14:01:11.833-04:00Catch a swarm/sitting on top of the worldOne of the other ways of getting honeybees besides ordering a package is to capture a swarm. Swarming season is coming. This is when bees, who have been productively filling up their hive with more bees, decided it’s getting a little crowded in here. The hive splits: a new queen is produced, the old queen leaves with about half the bees. The departees cluster in a swarming football-sized mass Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-66053723269481930422009-05-02T00:42:00.000-04:002009-05-02T00:42:00.623-04:00Brooklyn Food ConferenceToday is the Brooklyn Food Conference. It looks to be a mammoth event, with workshops, films, speakers, tours, and presumably, some food in there, too. Many things are happening at John Jay High School on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Stuff for kids is at the Slope's PS 321 (presumably all kids will be able to get in there for this). Other things are going on at the Old Stone House, the Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-63243234856827177322009-04-30T22:18:00.002-04:002009-04-30T22:26:06.147-04:00No bees?By now, you probably know that the honeybee situation is dire. There are just far fewer bees than there were a quarter century ago, certainly less than there were fifty years ago. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) got a lot of media attention for a while, and is still a major, unresolved problem, but bee populations were plummeting long before CCD. Pick the reasons: pesticides, climate change, Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-64397618958997669622009-04-30T16:38:00.000-04:002009-04-30T16:40:22.112-04:00DandyProspect Park, Wellhouse.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-530161575313076612009-04-29T12:30:00.003-04:002009-04-29T12:45:40.896-04:00IPMIntegrated Pest Management. This grid comes with a screened IPM bottom board. It allows you to count the aptly named Varroa destructor mites, a serious pest to bee hives, which fall through the screen onto this grid. We're going to be sugaring the frames to take care of the mites. This is a labor intensive method, but with only one hive to care for, not really a problem. Sugaring means that youMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-41634209865085514812009-04-26T08:51:00.001-04:002009-04-26T08:53:58.444-04:00Bees in Brooklyn, Bees on the InternetYes! It looks like we have a home for the hive. Details to follow. Meanwhile, you may enjoy this interview about beekeeping here in the city. Rod Huntress’s Radio Free Cupcake is an internet radio project documenting his curiosity about food. I’m looking forward to future installments.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-479024778849804572009-04-23T13:00:00.002-04:002009-04-23T13:06:36.635-04:00Bees in the mudA dozen bees were in the mud on the Lookout Hill steps in Prospect Park this morning. Gathering water, perhaps also salts and minerals. I wonder if there's a feral hive somewhere on the hill.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-15427349467778238162009-04-22T17:42:00.000-04:002009-04-22T17:42:00.340-04:00Earth Day Bee-InsUrban bee consciousness is growing by leaps and bounds, and that’s a good thing. Gerry at Global Swarming has a wrap up of recent items, and of course there are the Presidential hives on the White House lawn that are all the ... rage. Above: tipped off by Amarilla, I went past Anthropologie on 5th Avenue and 16th St. in the Inner Borough to see their window display for Earth Day. An average hiveMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-49173685638349364872009-04-22T12:26:00.003-04:002009-04-22T12:41:22.956-04:00Skeps againJustice and Prudence are looking over your money, honey, with that beautiful gold skep between them. Or at least that’s what that old long-haired billygoat Ben Franklin wants you to believe. This plaque is the old South Brooklyn Savings building on the corner of on Court and Atlantic, now Trader Vic’s Joe’s. It’s a lot more golden in real life.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-63823742821024736022009-04-21T10:47:00.003-04:002009-04-21T11:06:55.707-04:00Out of the strong...Lyle's Golden Syrup may go a long way to explaining British teeth. It's liquid sugar (technically, inverted sugar, a byproduct of the process of converting sugar cane juice into granular sugar) and once you've had it on steel-cut oatmeal, the kind that takes thirty minutes to make, you'll know it makes a strong run for maple syrup's lead in the non-honey sweetsstakes. The reason it's here is thatMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-73368558628635799572009-04-17T16:49:00.000-04:002009-04-17T16:50:45.517-04:00In Green-Wood CemeteryMatthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-80395988710428958072009-04-16T20:10:00.002-04:002009-04-16T20:13:21.639-04:00The search for a hive site continues. We’ll be checking out some places this weekend. Then, deciding what color to paint the hive. White is traditional, but I think we’ll go for something a little more blending-in, something a little more, "hey, when did you put a Shinto shrine to the household gods in your backyard?" sort of color.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-72574884016543149262009-04-12T09:25:00.002-04:002009-04-12T09:38:28.822-04:00E.V. hiving 2The entrance reducer is set to the smallest opening so that the hive, which is underpopulated in the beginning, can defend itself from raiders and robbers as it gains strength and numbers through the spring. Always set the opening up, so that it doesn't become clogged with dead bees.Pry off the top of tha package. take out the queen cage, make sure she's ok.Then a bunch of heads intervened so I Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-56212581981772465942009-04-12T09:06:00.003-04:002009-04-12T09:22:30.440-04:00E.V. Hiving 1At an undisclosed location in the East Village...Four hives. Two cameramen (AP, some German outfit). One photographer (NYPost). One radio newswoman (public radio). I moved ahead quickly to get a shot before the crowd.A package of Georgia-born Italian honeybees.The queen cage. The queen is marked with a blue dot to help her stick out during inspections.The cage is set up between the frames. The Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-53276696554019797272009-04-09T20:30:00.003-04:002009-05-05T09:17:49.295-04:00Plan...Yeah, that's right, Plan B. We'll get the southern belle bees two weeks later. And we'll get a space. If you have suggestions, we're open to them. We need a readily accessible place that gets morning sun. There should be about ten feet of flyway in front of the hive. Ideally, we'd like a garden, but a roof will do. Or, hell, a roof garden... Accessibility for the beekeepers is key, and Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-47196890594466128672009-04-09T16:06:00.004-04:002009-04-09T16:38:55.557-04:00oh-uhThe garden that was to host the bees has just decided that they won't be hosting them after all. They had confirmed, but must have had second thoughts.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-92185253251825908562009-04-09T13:11:00.002-04:002009-04-09T13:20:43.438-04:00Bee-BasedIf you're reading this delightful piece by Alicia Kachmar in Brooklyn Based, which I understand is read even by people across the big puddle, then welcome to this blog about bee-keeping to be in the big but not so bad city. We intrepid Brooklyn-based bee keepers are actually planning to hive this weekend. That means we'll be pouring the bees into their new hive. That's right, pouring them in. Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-44244098348991735982009-04-06T16:49:00.002-04:002009-04-06T16:52:03.330-04:00This just inOK, it actually showed up fairly recently. Scientific American on urban honey. Andrew Cote has the money quote.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-56956927584496409372009-04-05T21:13:00.001-04:002009-04-05T21:16:08.449-04:00Primed Thank heavens for longer days. After working 9-5 today (I gotta get religion!), I just had time to prime the hive.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-85407971154178404222009-04-04T19:38:00.002-04:002009-04-04T19:47:02.598-04:00FramedGlue. Two nails at each top end, one at each bottom end. Brads to reinforce the edges of the top.Ten frames, one with wax foundation.The wax foundation. A thin sheet of wax reinforced with metal rods, imprinted on both sides with hexacomb. Smells really good.Ten frames are ready for the hiving.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-65892960162157406942009-03-31T21:48:00.002-04:002009-03-31T21:53:22.602-04:00Prep for paintingI've taped the edges of the hive boxes, outer cover, and bottom, all sections which won't be needing paint, which only goes on the exterior surface. The taping maybe overkill, but I'm not much of a housepainter.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769531409075397171.post-16220884689190083922009-03-29T14:34:00.004-04:002009-03-29T14:46:51.477-04:00The hivehas arrived.R makes a deep. A rainy back yard kept us inside, so now the apartment smells of lumber.A deep or brood box with cover. This is how the hive will start out. After several weeks, we will addanother deep, and a shallow or medium (those are actually different sizes). The smaller box is where our honey will come from if the bees have a productive first season. We will prime and paint Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13334628837533439470noreply@blogger.com2